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Old barn will help make new Prairie Plains Education Center building

Grand Island Independent - Mark Coddington

On the Road to a New Home

Bill and
Jan Whitney may have been the only Nebraskans excited about last week's cold
snap.

The frigid weather gave the area its first hard freeze of the winter,
allowing the Whitneys' Prairie Plains Resource Institute to move a massive barn
roof across four miles of fields to set it on top of its new education center
west of Marquette.

The center has been part of the institute's plans for decades, but with the
move came a sense of certainty that's been elusive throughout the planning and
fundraising process.

"When that barn sits down on that foundation tomorrow, it's a
reality," said Bill Whitney, a PPRI founder, during a break in the
structure's move.

Making that reality happen required three days and plenty of engineering
know-how.

Prairie Plains, whose headquarters are in Aurora, hired Williams Midwest
Housemovers of Hastings to move the roof north from the Larry Sands farm to the
site of the new center, a slow, bumpy and bizarre-looking journey.

As the roof rumbled across the frozen cornfields -- each of its huge, flat
sides measuring 45 feet from peak to eave -- it was visible for miles. It was
certainly a strange sight -- at first glance, it almost resembled a spaceship
rising sharply out of the bleak landscape -- and it drew a parade of PPRI
employees, local officials and curious neighbors.

When the roof was ready to be moved onto the foundation, its width forced
Williams Midwest to perform two moves. After the first move halfway over the
foundation, the beams on which the roof was rolled were shifted, and the roof
was moved the rest of the way.

The roof will form the frame for a 9,000-square-foot building that will be
the home base for PPRI's annual SOAR day camp, in which students explore the
history and science behind prairies, rivers and Nebraska's other natural
resources.

The Whitneys also foresee the building being used for lectures, school trips
and retreat space for writers, artists or businesses.

Ground was broken for the building this fall, and most of the foundation was
set through more than 300 volunteer hours.

Now that the foundation is set, the institute hopes to enclose the building
and install some utilities over the coming months, Whitney said. He estimated
that phase would cost about $50,000.

Whitney said PPRI plans to finish the center in phases, as sufficient funds
come in. He hopes the final costs come in under $500,000, but a firm budget has
not been set.

At the site, the awe at both the sheer scale of the move and its symbolism
were evident.

Wide-eyed PPRI employees and members snatched looks inside the barn while it
sat on elevated beams before its move. Others took hundreds of photos, posting
many of them on the institute's new Web site at www.prairieplains.org.

Wayne Mollhoff, a PPRI board member and former Albion resident, said that
watching the barn finally be moved was a surreal experience.

For years, the board had discussed a new center but always in abstract
terms, he said.

"We said, 'Someday, we'll have a place where we can take people and do
things, we can have kids come out, we can have grad students come
research," Mollhoff said. "But it was always 'someday.'"

In addition to those feelings of amazement, Jan Whitney expressed relief at
the move. If the freeze hadn't occurred, the move would have had to be delayed
until next winter, bumping the project back a year.

Of course, with temperatures in the single digits during the move, she said
she wouldn't mind an end to the cold spell she had so earnestly hoped for.

Windflowers are much more common than one might think, especially on hay meadows or more heavily grazed sites. They are easily overlooked because they are very early bloomers – late April in Nebraska – and very small, at about four inches tall. On the occasion that one happens on a large colony in bloom it is a sheer delight of color and motion.